Which synth was your first love or lighted your G.A.S. ?

[jxalex]

Sorry, but I did not found that thread which would be like this. Its not about first synthesizer, but about your first synth which made you to fall in love with, or actually started your gear acquisition syndrome - G.A.S.

So how about telling how your G.A.S. started? What was that special synthesizer for your?


my story: Roland MKS-50

To me it happened by random happening. It was not a plan to get a whole park of synthesizers. I thought that well... one keyboard synth would be enough.

At 1994 ..couple times I have had tried MIDI keyboard controller (by shake of situation, that someone needed me to repair them), which were bad choice and turned me away from them. It was eVolution, powered directly from game port. I was back then just arranging music in FastTracker II. (My background is DEMOSCENE and electronics engineer).

At 2005 I loaned a Kawai K4 couple times. That one was better however it still did not clicked with me, however I liked how it felt. So not all keyboards are bad ones. So I loaned that again couple times.

At 2006 I moved on to MadTracker 2, loaned that Kawai K4, I used some VSTs and with Kawai, and still nothing yet, but I planned to get anyway my own keyboard and I thought it should be synth which sound I like.
I heard Juno-106, I liked it, bought it, but its shipping took so much time that I just looked around synthmania.com site for next synth. However I was NOT so much thinking particularly about some synths at all.
So, while I waited Juno-106 I listened the sound examples of Roland MKS-50. It was somehow interesting to me and I looked also at ebay that how much that MKS rack cost. I saw "BuyNow" price, BUT ... I was new at the e-bay, this "buynow" price concept was very new to me, also I had no idea how many times that site asks confirmation when I click "buyNow". Before I knew it happened that it said "its yours, pay now".
THIS was actually like a slipping on a banana peel... I was arranging music with VSTs and Kawai K4 in my MadTracker 2 when that MKS50 arrived! It was to me the very first close contact with analog synths and compared to everything I had -- samples, Kawai K4, VST synths -- that MKS50 synth sounded very warm, rich sounding, and it made me to think "I would _love_ to have more _these_ lovely sounding boxes so that it wont be the one synth!".
A week later arrived Juno-106. Finally. Instantly I was hooked with it. And after that I was already getting thought that instead of recording and sampling synthesizers, I want to have multitimbral setup, all with MIDI realtime.

THe Kawai K4 I sent back.

After 4 months I had several rack synthesizer modules (JD990, M1, WS A/D, D550, MKS50, MKS70) and just one keyboard (Juno-106), however the story about how I get the second keyboard, is different -- my friend had problem with his Ensoniq SQ80 and I was interested about getting something to repair.

The third keyboard was to me Yamaha AN1x becouse I wanted already something "which is really new, and so I do not need to patch, repair", becouse so far ALL of these KEYBOARD synths had problems and all of these need repairing.
The rest of after that is that I almost every second month bought something back on 2006.
Also, some synth modules which I really liked, I bought another one more (JD990s I have 3) and besides MKS70 I have JX10 and JX8P, but I realized then that JX8P sounds much fatter than JX10.
So if someone says that "learn to know the synthesizers you already own, before hoarding for a next synthesizer" then perhaps I took it word-by-word, becouse I took the service manual schematics and looked why it sounded different. However my gear hoarding is not limited just buying it, but also its all modifications and upgrades, waveform cards, programmers and spare details.
Having now ca 10 keyboards and 14 sound modules, and I sold only one module -- NOvation A-station.

Now I havent bought anymore, becouse there is not any what I already own, or it is very very similar, or its price is not right. Couple synths I have bought just becouse -- well becouse it was sold as broken and I wanted to woke it to life. But it does not limit my desire to build myself.

Your stories?

[jxalex]

EDIT....

and yes... about every synth... I remember how it arrived, if I carried at home, which package it was, or was it postal service (and I remember the time and the postmen-ladys too). THere are some bizarre story and most bizarre memorable thing perhaps is how that JD800 arrived to me -- it was in a box with name "flowers box" name and the blankets bag was used as a cushion material which was actually already at the bottom of the box. It was really odd to me something like THIS, becouse so far I was used to see professional packing in a bubble-wrap-plastic and such. But then I remembered -- I said "pack it _carefully_, its plastic is fragile". I come to only one conclusion about this bizarre packaging way -- it must be a woman! My guess was 100% correct. Only women think about with words "soft and careful" as putting in a soft blanketbag, while having no idea if it protects synthesizer its entire journey from Germany to Sweden. JD800 is fine and arrived well though

[griffin avid]

KORG microKORG. I was 100% sampling- production-wise.
Went into a Sam Ash and saw a cute little keyboard.

I actually laughed at it because it was so to-like in appearance with the goofy look and small keys...
And I laughed at the price, which I think was $499 USD (now, like 10 years later it's still $399 )

BUT every sound-patch sounded awesome.
Every sound- sounded use-able.
So I really took a wild risk and grabbed one.
I remember going home and making 10 tracks with it that night.

I used to wish for, what I now know is, knob-per-function because I hated that grid.
I could never get it right and always messed up a sound by turning the wrong parameter.

When I found out this was a mini Ms2000 I almost snagged one just on the idea alone, but I wanted a full-sized keyboard with lots of knobs. I saw a guy modify the front panel so it stands up like the MS20 and almost lost my mind..

Recently- I saw a custom overlay (found while looking up some info while trying to answer a question on this forum about painting synths....) for the microKORG and a Behringer MIDI controller that maps every function using a sysex preset. THAT has tempted me to bring the microKORG back on line again. But it's too much money for a synth that I would only like to visit from nostalgia....

[cornutt]

Well, the first thing that made me want a synth was Switched-On Bach, and I thought Carlos' modular Moog on the album cover was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. (Still do. ) But I was only 8 then, so I couldn't buy a synth... Jumping forward about 15 years, I bought a Juno-106 and used it to play in bar bands in the '80s. That was cool, but it didn't really set G.A.S. off. What did that was acquiring a Yamaha CX5M, a sort of hybrid between the DX100 and a home computer. Although it eventually turned out to be disappointing (due to lack of support from Yamaha), everyone who saw it thought it was COOL GEAR!!! So off we went. A JD800 and an S-750 later, and I had spent some serious G.A.S. money. A bunch of rack-mount stuff followed that, and the collection just kept growing for a while.

Around 1998, I discovered Synthesis Technology and the re-birth of the modular. With the major exception of being one of the first 50 Solaris customers, most of the G.A.S. money I've spent since then has been on the modular.

[ninja6485]

I used software exclusively for years. I'm not sure why I decided to buy my Radias, but I knew I wanted to get a synthesizer to take my music to the next level, and just ti play and experiment with creatively. I was initially looking at the microkorg, but the salesman talked me out of it! That was fine for a few years, but I didn't really have G.A.S yet. Then I decided that I was interested in learning how musicians made my favorite musical styles in the past. I remember looking at the back of the spice lab Lost in Spice album, thinking: these old synths have been around for years, and one except me (that I know) likes this music, or probably cares about them. I bet I can get a bunch of these really cheap, and follow in Oliver Lieb (among other's) footsteps. Boy was I wrong, but what a great step in furthering my art!

[Solderman]

Virus b, no doubt

[Tidda]

That brand new MS-10 in the shopping window of the local music shop in the late 70s did it for me.
I was about 10 at the time so it took some years before I could afford my first synth.
By then the digital revolution (DX-7/M-1) had happened.

Tidda

[Music Bird]

A guy playing a Korg M50 (red one) in a band. That made me interested in synths. Now I've been using synths to create music, but that is on my iPad Music Studio and FL Studio Mobile HD.

[gcoudert]

I fell in love with synths in 1981 (age 14) when I heard ELO's "Time" album. I played some of the keyboard parts on my Bontempi organ while listening to the LP but that just wasn't enough. The second step in my addiction came when Léo, the drummer guy who worked at the local piano store in my French hometown of Chambéry, managed to convince the owners to expand their stock towards the new synth market. This was in 1982/83. They had that Roland Juno-60 sitting on top of a then-uninteresting (to me) Yamaha CP70. I eventually went in and play it several times. I knew I wanted one. Unfortunately, its price tag of about FF13,000 was way above my parents' means and it wasn't until August 1985 - when everybody wanted a DX7 - that I was able to lay my hands on a pristine second-hand Juno-60 for half its 1982 retail price. It was stolen in 1988 and found again a month later at the local tip by an honest guy who, suspecting it had been nicked, took it to a music shop where the owner quickly identified it as mine from the serial number. I kept it until 1990, when I moved to England with my recently acquired JX8P, DW8000 and U110.

[joeboy]

It might have been the Casio Vl-tone or Boss Dr-55.

Oddly enough I've yet to own either of them. I just heard them both in lots of murky, charming music and thought "maybe I should give this a try."

[abruzzi]

For me, the Kurzweil K2vx (a K2000 with all the ROM expansions). They're still my favorite (have a loaded K2500 and K2661).

[V301H]

It was a brand new white-face ARP Odyssey. Back then it was pretty much a MiniMoog or an Odyssey. At first I wanted a MiniMoog but the salesman showed me a bunch of things the Odyssey could do that the Moog couldn't. He didn't take into account the awesome sound of the Moog but I went with the Odyssey and was very happy with it.

[Bitexion]

I was much later, for me it was getting the Alesis Ion in 2004 (ish). I read about all the filter types and wanted to hear what the REAL synths the 14 filters were modelled on sounded like.

And thus the obsession began. And the acquisition of way too many boards. Most of which are just sitting in a cupboard or basement.

[Rbh]

My first real synth purchase was a Prophet 600. I added the little fsk card sync midi widget ( can't remember what it was called ). I think this was right about the time the midi standard was large scale introduced. I also went in big for the K1000 and K2000R with sampler and full card bump. Still have the K2K too.

[meatballfulton]

One day back in 1986 I walked into the local Ensoniq dealer and saw this:



When I hit the play button I heard this!

Prior to that moment I did not understand anything about MIDI sequencing, let alone understand a synthesizer that could play entire songs by itself, no drum machine or other gear needed.

I started saving my money but never did get an ESQ-1...ended up with an SQ-80 instead which was even better